I Needed Someone to Bleed
by LyrialZander
Summary: Set in 1990, 1988, 1981, 1978, and 1970. from Hyde’s POV, a little bit of an Alternate Universe…bear with me, all will be revealed. Basically Just an exercise in explaining Hyde’s loves. Chapters are pretty short. Bold Italics song lyrics. Italics
1. READ ME FIRST

TITLE: **I Needed Someone To Bleed**

AUTHOR: Lyrial Zander

RATING: PG- PG13 (For sex, drugs, and swearing. Mostly innuendo. Enjoy)

DEDICATION: To Foolishheart… who always has such nice things to say.

NOTE: Set in 1990, 1988, 1981, 1978, and 1970. from Hyde's POV, a little bit of an Alternate Universe…bear with me, all will be revealed. Basically Just an exercise in explaining Hyde's loves. Chapters are pretty short.

**_Bold Italics_**= song lyrics. _Italics_= Hyde's thoughts/narration.

****

WARNING! Character death! If you are one of those super sensitive people who can't stand a character dying in a fan fiction, do not read this story. I didn't know it was gonna happen, honestly. But hey, you might like it anyway.

FEEDBACK: Good, Bad, Ugly, all welcome!

DISCLAIMER: That 70s Show et al belongs to FOX and Carsey Werner. Lyrics belong to Ric Ocasek and The Cars… aw hell, you know what isn't mine…don't sue please. I really don't have anything worth suing for now that my brother has my comic book collection. Any opinions on The Cars are my assumption of Hyde's opinions, I actually like them even though I know that they are a bit on the cheesy psuedo 80's pop side of the music world.


	2. Prologue: The Cars

****

Prologue: The Cars

**1990**

_It's an album I never liked, by a band that I still don't like. I saw it there in a box, on a card table, slowly warping in the sun, and by the time I realized what had happened I had already paid the frumpy housewife who was running the garage sale. She gave me a half-hearted smile, like I'd just bought her that pack of cigs that she's been needing. When I got home I just sorta threw it into the record player and left it there. I didn't have any intention of actually listening to it, it's like I was possessed to fork over a dollar for something I didn't even want just to let it go to waste._

After that, I completely forgot I had it. Then she came in, rambled on about something and like usual I kind of tuned her out in favor of the TV., but hey it was a documentary on Led Zepplin… you'd have ignored her too. She said something like "…kids from school…dirty socks…broke my shoe…Ste…?" Or at least that's what I heard of it.

She sighed loud and deliberately. When she saw the record and pushed the play button and after that I was gone, as if the music had magical powers and I was thrown back in time to the years that the album was played far too much. Bits and pieces flooded my brain, I was too perma-stoned to remember all of it. But there were those times when things just stick to your memory. Like the years where I'd tried so hard to block out most everything, 'cause of the pain


	3. Good Times Roll

****

Chapter 1: Good Times Roll

**__**

let the good times roll, let them knock you around, let the good times roll, let them make you a clown

**1978**

_Everything was better in Forman's Basement, the good times were always rolling…just as long as I had something to roll myself. It wasn't just about the weed, though that helped, but just being down there and knowing that I was wanted was all I really cared about._

"Hey guys, I think I can shove my whole fist in my mouth." said Kelso.

_Of course being around Kelso made me feel like a genius so that was good stuff too. Every group needs a Kelso though, it's a give in. We had the entire freak show assortment of stereotypical best-buds. Eric was the nice guy, Kelso the idiotic clown, Fez was the one nobody understands, Donna was the hot tomboy and Jackie was the bitchy princess. I was the anti-government radical (the most essential part). Everyone is a freak in high school and everyone has friends, whether they want them or not._

"Kelso, I'll give you five dollars if you can, ten if you can shove both fists in your mouth." I said.

I spent most of my teenage years down in that basement, hell, I lived there until I was 19. We were the inseparable six. Eric was the ringleader, mainly because it was his basement, but also because you could go to him for anything. He was a guy who really cared about people and was willing to help you out. Even if he had no idea what he was doing. Donna, Eric, and Kelso have been my friends since second grade. Jackie and Kelso were on and off their entire relationship but Jackie always stayed. I'm sure she felt the same way that I did, welcome. Even though I we were a little hard on her.

Those were good times, but with all good times, there was the pain. I don't mean the part about my mom leaving, or my dad coming back and being a worthless wretch. I mean real pain. Heart wrenching, gut pounding, barfing up your brownies pain. It was the same scenario every night:

"Hey Eric, I was thinking we could go to the movies tonight." Donna looked at him expectantly, her big blue eyes shiny and full of secret thoughts. Movies meant make-out and Donna was just a normal girl who wanted to be touched like everyone else.

__

"Well, um, yeah, okay." Eric replied, twitchy, annoying, and completely oblivious to the fact that Donna had those secret thoughts too.

**__**

Eric and Donna were an inevitable thing. From the moment they met Eric was in love with her. That's the way things were with Donna, you couldn't help but love her. She was everything a man wanted. They had their troubles and I'm not exactly happy to say that some of them were my fault.

let the good times roll, let the stories be cold, they can say what they want, let the photos be old, let them show what they want

That Christmas when I gave Donna a picture of us on my front porch, that was one of the worst moments of my life. I'd been in love with Donna since she was beating up Eric for lunch money that he'd happily give her. That picture was all I really had left of what little love we'd had. Puppy love and childhood promises, but they meant something, to me anyway. I was hoping to jog her memory but it didn't work and after I gave her the picture, all I had was the illusion that I had her first.


	4. My Best Friend's Girl

****

Chapter 2: My Best Friend's Girl

**__**

you're always dancing down the street, with your suede blue eyes, and every new boy that you meet, he doesn't know the real surprise

From grade school on, my every thought was somehow connected to Donna Pinciotti. But All I could do is sit back and watch while she and Forman became a "thing". They were perfect for each other of course, except for the fact that Eric wanted something different for her. Donna was the smartest one of the group, and she never got credit for it. She tested on a genius level in everything she tried, but her family never noticed her for it. Eric had no idea how smart she was, the only reason I knew was because I was called to the principal's office for spitting on the American flag.

And I'd do it again.

**1970**

"Hey, you're here too?" I asked.

"Yeah, they said I might have to change schools." Donna replied, she had started to tear up by this point. "I like Point Place, I don't want to move again."

"Don't worry Pinciotti, if they make you move I'll burn down the school and run away with you. Then you'll never be alone."

_Hey, I was nine._

"Stephen Hyde, you keep your mouth shut." said Mrs. Keeler, the office assistant.

"Why are you here?" I whispered to Donna when the old crone turned her back.

"They said I have too many IQ points, they want me to go to a special school." she whispered back.

"Oh. Are they talking to your parents in there?" I pointed to the obvious outline of Bob Pinciotti in the office window.

"Yeah, I…I don' wanna move again Steve…" She started to cry, soft silent tears falling down onto her jeans, they matched her eyes.

_At this point she grabbed my hand and squeezed it with her entire soul, and I felt it. I felt needed for the first time in my life, Donna needed me. So I guess that's why I really fell in love with her. She made me feel like a person. Without really thinking I pulled Donna off the office bench and we ran. We ran faster then nine year olds can run. Past the school, past her house, past Forman's, past everything until we realized we didn't have anywhere to go. We stopped running and sat on the front porch of my shit hole house and waited until we could breathe again. After that we talked about everything we knew, which wasn't really much. Neither of us really knew what IQ points were, or why they were important. I comforted her as best I could, which wasn't much. Then I gave her a hemp bracelet that I made._

"Thanks Steve. But I guess I should go home before it gets dark."

"It's already dark."

"They're probably worried about me."

"You could stay here, my mom won't wake up for a few days."

"No, I should just go."

"I could walk you home."

"I don't want you to get in trouble."

"I am trouble."

_She laughed and waved goodbye. That was our place, my front porch. We sat there everyday after school for years, until Forman was all she thought about. I don't know if she ever told Eric she was a certifiable genius, or if she even wanted him to know. But I knew, and I loved her for it, and the porch was our place and no one else was allowed. The day the picture was taken she had promised that we'd always be together. If that's not saying she loved me, I don't what to think._

she's my best friend's girl, she's my best friend's girl, and she used to be mine

Forman and Donna went to the Prom together, by that time I had all but given up on having her as a girlfriend, sometimes I wonder if we were ever really that close.

Donna was the only one who called me Steve.

I wouldn't let anyone else call me that. She stopped, of course, I guess she assumed I liked Hyde better. The first time I ever kissed Donna, she slapped me. It was worth the pain, not ever kissing her would have felt a million times worse. I went to the Prom too, even though I'm against everything it stands for. I went because once again I felt needed, by a girl, a crying girl.

Jackie was the only one who called me Stephen.


	5. Just What I Needed

****

Chapter 3: Just What I Needed

**__**

I don't mind you coming here, and wasting all my time, 'cause when you're standing oh so near, I kinda lose my mind

1979

After the Prom, I felt different about Jackie. She still drove me nuts, with her talking. But she really was a lot like me. Her parents were never there for her either, sure she had money and basically got anything she wanted, but none of it meant anything to her. Jackie was sweet, caring person… she just hid it to protect herself.

Kinda like me.

I acted like I hated her, because I didn't. I acted like I didn't care if she left, because I wanted her to stay. That was how we were. She followed me around, convinced she was in love with me and I pushed her away. But she knew I was just being a dick, and she stayed. And I thank whatever God is out there that she did.

Otherwise I never would have survived Eric and Donna's engagement.

****

"What do you mean you're not going?"

"Jackie I hate weddings, I'm not going." _I snapped at her, I couldn't tell her why. We were sitting in my room in the basement, after "we" were a secret fling, after I betrayed her. I promised her I'd never hurt her again, I lied. She was laying with her head on my stomach while I rambled on about my own crap._

"Stephen you have to go, you're Eric's best man, he needs you." Jackie said.

"Look, they haven't even set a date, I was just saying I don't wanna go, I don't care who's wedding it is."

"You're being stupid, they're your best friends, if you don't go it would hurt everyone."

"It hurts just thinking about it."

When she sat up to look at me, she had a glimmer of pain in her eyes that she covered quickly. But I saw it, and it hurt me back.

"I know you love her." she said in a quiet voice. _Like a secret. My secret._

"Jackie…"

"No, just listen to me. You've always loved Donna, I know that, everyone knows that. Except maybe Fez, but it's alright.

"No Jackie, I love you."

Jackie held my hands in her lap, I wanted her to be wrong.

"Stephen, you don't just get over your first love. I still think about Michael every once in a while and if he was getting married I'd be sad too. It's just a part of your life that you don't want to lose."

"Somehow this always gets back to you and Kelso." _I guess that's what I do when I'm guilty, try to pick a fight. But by this time she'd caught on and immediately dropped the whole conversation._

She stood up and started putting her jeans back on, I didn't know what exactly to say to her so I said nothing.

"I know you like the bed to yourself, so I'll see you tomorrow."

"Jackie…"

"It's alright Stephen," She kissed me on the forehead, "Tomorrow."

But I could see she was sad underneath.

****

I don't mind you hanging out, and talking in your sleep, it doesn't matter where you've been, as long as it was deep

After that, I made it clear that she could stay in my bed as long as she wanted. I told her I didn't care about her past with Kelso. I don't. We didn't bring up Donna anymore, pretended it never happened. I guess it's just what we do. Looking back I should have talked about it, confronted it, defeated it.

But I didn't really want to.

****


	6. I'm In Touch With Your World

****

Chapter 4: I'm In Touch With Your World

**__**

I'm in touch with your world, so don't you try to hide it, I'm in touch with your world, and nobody's going to buy it

1981

_Donna came by my place while Eric was in Washington D.C. on a field trip for college civics class. Jackie was in Paris with her mother, trying to patch things up. It was three weeks before she was Forman's forever. Somehow the timing was perfect and we both knew it without really speaking. I'd just moved into my old house, left to me when my mom died so I was finally out of the basement. It was one reason why it happened, I felt like I didn't owe Eric anything anymore. I never asked him to save me, or help me, or even give a shit. But he did. Because he's Eric Forman: nice guy. My best friend._

My best friend, and I'd felt like I owed him for years.

Donna and I sat on my front porch, the same as what we'd had, but with beer. We talked about our families, we talked about her scholarships, her upcoming third year of college. We talked about everything except Forman and three weeks ahead. It was hot and humid which was rare. Donna was wearing a skirt which was rarer still. She smiled and laughed with me like she wasn't trying to hide how scared she was just to be sitting here, just to be thinking those thoughts.

And I still loved her.

And she knew it.

"It's weird you know, I always felt like you knew me better then anyone."

__

"Did you?" I asked.

__

She wiped a droplet of sweat off of her neck with her finger, I guess she noticed that I'd been watching it trickle down. Her hair was up in a haphazard knot on top of her head, little wisps falling in her eyes in a way that looked accidental, but I knew was engineered just for me.

"I did, I mean, I still do sometimes. Everyone goes to Eric when they need help."

When she mentioned his name she paused slightly, like a tiny shudder, like guilt. But she went on.

"I tell Eric everything, I love him. But he doesn't see through me like you do."

"Donna…"

"I miss the porch Steve. And I feel bad because I know this is going to hurt like hell, but I don't care anymore. Because I don't think I can love Eric without it."

_And I somehow knew exactly what she meant. Like when we were together, we were part of one world, separate from the one with everyone else. In order to survive in one, we had to experience the other and then let it go._

I knew it would hurt.

I didn't care.

There was no point in arguing facts. She was with Eric, she loved him. I was with Jackie, I loved her. But right now they were gone, and we were here, together, on the porch. We loved each other. It's the only sense we had to make.

We made love nonstop for the whole week, often forgetting to breathe, to stop touching each other long enough to prevent slipping into some kind of mystical coma. We didn't eat, drank only water, and survived somehow on our love.

Like a fasting.

On the last night we mostly held each other, both agreeing in silence that

It was wrong

It was necessary

It was the only time we'd ever been alive.

Donna left at about two a.m., we said our good byes and see you laters without a strange note between us. We'd finally let it go.

We hoped.

****

It's a sticky contradiction, it's a thing you call creation, everything is science fiction, and I ought to know

_Jackie called from Paris, she told me that she'd wrote our names on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. She also said she was coming back to Wisconsin a bit sooner than she thought._

She'd gotten food poisoning.

She needed to talk to me, but not over the phone.

She loved me.

Donna was gone, Jackie was coming back, and I'd never felt less empty.


	7. Don't Cha Stop

****

Chapter 5: Don't Cha Stop

**__**

right here I'd like to melt inside of you, right here your kiss is totally new, right here your hands are soft and creamy, right here your mouth is wet and dreamy

When Jackie came back I immediately asked her to move in with me. I confessed my undying love to her in the most cheesy romantic ways I could think of… which she loved. I let her redecorate my house, our house, after setting a few (no pink, no purple, no unicorns) ground rules. After we sat down to have the talk I decided that one pink and purple room was fine, unless it was a boy. My old room was emptied and plans were made.

It wasn't just French food after all, it was the baby. The food poisoning was a cover story she told her mother so as not to panic her. We figured that we'd have to wait at least a month after Forman and Donna married before we tried it.

They'd waited so long.

Being with Jackie was new, her eyes, her skin, her touch. Like I'd never met her but I'd always known her. She was still a princess, but she was my princess.

****

your rhapsody is blowing my cool, your fantasies were written for fools, your long black hair it tickles my skin, feels so luscious come on do it again

_I felt better being with Jackie then I ever had, every thing she did that I used to find annoying was suddenly adorable. The sex was incredible, and she openly wondered why it was so much better, thinking it was the pregnancy. It was better because I was finally making love to Jackie…not Donna. I admit that I always thought of Donna during sex, especially when I was alone… But I could be with Jackie now. I asked her to be with me forever because I wanted it. I was going to anyway, even before I knew about the baby. That's why I had to left that part of my life go._

The part with Donna.

Guilt is a funny thing.

The funny part is, I wasn't guilty about cheating on her.

I'd felt guilty for loving Donna for all those years.

Yeah, I had everything figured out.

****


	8. You're All I've Got Tonight

Chapter 6: You're All I've Got Tonight

**__**

I don't care if you hurt me some more, I don't care if you even the score

"Stephen, I can't see my feet!"

_Being pregnant made Jackie happy, being married made her even happier. She planned the whole wedding, with Donna's help of course, afterwards she had maternity clothes to buy and that meant shopping. She was in heaven. And so was I. The scary part was she wasn't bitchy at all and I was worried that she'd somehow been swapped with a Stepford Wife in Paris…not that I was complaining. I wasn't scared to be tied to her for the rest of my life, I found it comforting. Like I'd always be needed._

When Eric and Donna decided to crash at our place during summer break we welcomed their company. We had a spare room and they didn't have to stay with Red and Kitty while they visited and worry about "smoke breaks" and nighttime noises. The latter being my only reservation.

Not only, that's a lie.

I secretly hoped that Forman knew all about what had happened. That Donna had been completely honest with him like always and told him about the wonderful thing we had done and how we were so free. But of course she hadn't, I didn't have to ask her to know. This treasure we had found, this burden.

It was ours.

They way they looked at each other during dinner reminded of how Donna had looked at me, out on the porch. Jackie was obsessing over baby names with our company. After we (except Jackie) smoked up it started to finally sink in. I hadn't needed marijuana since I'd slept with Donna and now that I'd had some, everything was clearer, everything was sinking in.

My God, what had we done?

"How about Hildegarde if it's a girl, Willoughby if it's a boy." Jackie suggested, I had no idea why.

"My god Jackie, those are hideous. What have you been reading?" Eric was nearly going into convulsions.

"Nothing, I just thought it would be good to have original names for once and not Sarah or John."

"Yeah, there were eight Sarahs in Point Place high, remember, there was Fat Sarah, Ugly Sarah, Hot Sarah, Sara with no H..." Donna said.

"What about Eric if it's a girl, Donna if it's a boy. That way we don't get confused." Eric suggested .

__

And it hurt to hear him talk. My best friend. I was an evil monster.

I took another hit.

"Brandel if it's a boy, Mirabelle if it's a girl." Jackie said. This time reading from a dime store baby name book.

"Better." I mustered with my lungs full of smoke.

I wasn't the only one involved, after all. Donna practically started it.

"I like Johan." Donna said.

_She was an angel, her red hair in her eyes, her sideways glances at me, eyes full of light. I couldn't blame her. I was evil._

"What if it's a girl?" Jackie asked her.

"It's not." Donna replied, like she had some sort of sixth sense about child bearing.

_Donna, the angel, named our child._

** __**

you're all I've got tonight, I need you, tonight

But she's a devil in disguise, my Donna, our Donna.

I was an idiot.

"I've tried to forget you." I told her when we were cleaning up the kitchen after making two batches of brownies, one special for us, one regular for Jackie's cravings.

__

"Yeah." was all Donna could muster over the dishes.

"It was wrong, right? Donna?"

"It wasn't wrong Steve. Don't ever say it was wrong." she was whispering in a harsh tone that sounded both hurt and diabolical.

"Donna?" I couldn't argue when she looked at me like that. Like a hurt puppy and a sex fiend at the same time. She put her still damp hands on my shoulders from behind and I shivered. She returned to putting the dishes away and I jumped at Eric's voice.

"Donna, are you coming with me to Mom and Dad's?"

__

Please go, I begged her silently

"Tomorrow Eric, I'm not feeling too good right now." Donna lied.

"Alright then, love you." Eric said.

"Love you too." She replied, but her eyes never left mine. Eric left her with me.

_We finished the dishes in silence. Then we made love on the kitchen counter with Jackie sleeping in the other room. The brownies burnt. Afterwards when she straightened her skirt and shirt she looked at me with a revelation._

"Sometimes I hate him." she said.

"Really? How could you hate him?"

"It's not even him that I hate, it's myself. I hate me when I'm with him. I feel like I'm nothing."

"Donna, You are everything to him."

"But I don't want to be. I want to leave, I can't stand being with him and still being alone.

"You don't mean that." I told her, but I knew she meant every word. She ate two burnt brownies and started kissing me again. It was hard to kiss her back and she felt it. I held her head on my shoulder while she cried soft heavy sobs.

"Leave with me." Donna said.

"I can't." _And every part of me wanted to_.

"I know."

__

The next morning she was gone.

****


	9. Bye Bye Love

****

Chapter 7: Bye Bye Love

**__**

I can't feel this way much longer, expecting to survive, with all these hidden innuendoes, just waiting to arrive

Donna wrote to me, but she never told me where she was at the time. Three times in three years she left a note at the restaurant for me to meet her at the Sleepy Time Lodge. I went and saw her and she kept me up to date on her life. She'd been writing articles for an underground newspaper and she was still a DJ, but WFPP transferred her way over to Chicago. But I saw what she didn't tell me, she'd been drinking heavily and getting into some harder drugs. Coke I assumed, I wasn't sure. Each time I met her with the intention of making her go to Eric, to tell him the truth. I promised her I'd stand by her side and we'd confess together. But of course it never panned out, we just ended up kissing, then fucking, on the very bed that Chrissie and I had fucked on.

That's all it was, fucking.

It meant nothing anymore except to satisfy her urges and make me feel used and creepy and a bastard for meeting her while Jackie watched Johan at home.

I kept waiting for it to mean something again, thinking that that would justify it. Like if it meant something, if I loved her it wasn't cheating.

The third time I told her it was the last.

"Don't you miss me Steve, don't you love me anymore."

"Of course I love you_, (I lied_) but I hate this, I can't live like this."

"You're the reason I'm still sane Steve, I wait as long as I can to come back and se you, and be held by you, you are the only person who ever loved me the way I needed it."

__

"Donna, I can't do this anymore. I don't love you that way anymore. It's fucking killing me."

"Do you think I like it? Do you think I want to break you and Jackie up?"

"No, I know, but it's not like we can just pretend it never happened we have to be honest."

"You can if you want Steve, but I'm not going to deal with your pain and mine, I have enough problems."

_She was acting like a totally different person, distant and selfish, like my mother did before she died. And it made me hate her._

"What kind of shit are you on Donna?"

"Fuck you Hyde!"

__

She kicked me out of the room and I walked away for the last time.

****

It's such a wavy midnight, when you slip into insane, electric angel rock and roller, I hear what you're playing

Donna's radio show got syndicated in 1985 and then everyone in the Midwest area heard her. "Hot Donna" was the undisputed authority on who was cool in rock and roll. But she wasn't the same person anymore, Chicago never met the Donna that Eric and I fell in love with, they only got the burnout and fade away version. Bob Pinciotti came to our door one night, in '88. I just remember Jackie answering it and then screaming to me from the other room. I ran to her and she was crying. She collapsed onto the floor with Bob holding her and sobbing in his own right.

"Daddy, wha's wrong with Momma?" Johan asked.

"She'll be fine, you take Erica to the playroom." I told him.

_After Johan was safely out of sight with his baby sister in tow, Bob told me about how they found her body in her old bedroom._

Donna came back home to die of her heroin overdose.

Her sister Tina found her.

Jackie wept for hours, I couldn't find any of my own tears.

I never told Jackie about how we'd ruined everything.

eyes of porcelain and blue, could shock me into sense, you think you're so illustrious you call yourself intense

At the wake, I sort of floated around to each of the people I used to be as close to as family. Letting each one say their piece, knowing that they really couldn't hear me either. This was too much for anyone to be able to live through. Everybody present died a little too. Everyone showed up of course, including the worshippers, the idolaters, a bunch of teenage girls who just knew the radio rocker Donna.

The drugged-out accident Donna.

I ignored them as much as possible, with their "Hot Donna" T-shirts on. Donna's big blue eyes shining out from their chests screaming 'look what no one will ever know again'.

Fez and Kelso stayed close to the parents, trying their damnedest to make some sense and lend whatever peace to Bob and Midge, as well as Red and Kitty who practically raised her as a daughter through her teenaged life. The women cried and the men gave hugs and I just stood back and make as little of a dent on the whole situation as I could.

Eric was the worst.

I don't want to talk about Eric.

Because Eric had the same exact thoughts I had about the whole thing.

Everything was a matter of weighing how much was your fault.

Bob, Midge, Red and Kitty will always worry that they were bad parents, but everyone knows that's bullshit. They will get their positive re-enforcement and all will be well sooner or later.

Jackie, Fez and Kelso are just friends who fell out of touch because they got their own lives. There is no blame that will stick to them after a few drinks.

But Eric and I, are rare birds. We will always hurt, and always worry. Because we loved her, we touched her too much or not enough, got her stoned and made her laugh and share the secrets that will be the reasons in our minds why Donna will never be here again. And nobody give enough of a shit to tell us that we weren't wrong for going on living after she left us. For ignoring the pain and forgetting just for a little while.

It was an open casket, I didn't look.

Tina is the only one who told me anything relevant, anything I remember. Poor Tina came back from college for a visit and ended up finding a body and scarring her mind. She sat with me and talked for half an hour. She'd grown up so much since I'd seen her that it shocked me how much she looked like Midge. I just sat in the hard plastic chair and stared into her own big blue eyes and remembered while she told me her favorite memories of her sister. Just when I was starting to zone out, Tina handed me a plain wooden picture frame.

"Donna was holding this when she died, I figured you should have it."

__

It was the picture of us on my front porch, the one I gave her for Christmas '76.

"She loved you, you know." Tina said.

"Yeah. She loved Eric too." _was all I could say_.

"She did. She was also wearing his promise ring, I'm giving it back to him."

"That'll help him, I think."

__

When Tina cried, the tears came down her cheeks but she talked through it. Like she didn't have the energy to weep, but couldn't stop the tears anyway. It made me want to hold her.

"Take care of your little girls Steve. Johan too."

"I will. Thank you Tina."

__

She stood from her chair and went to give Eric his ring. I watched him take it with shaky hands from across the room, he hugged Tina and cried right in front of everyone. Harder then anyone I'd ever seen mourning.

Eric Forman was absolved, and I asked Donna to give me his share of the blame.

****


	10. Moving In Stereo

_**Life's the same, I'm movin' in stereo. Life's the same, except for my shoes.**_

_So now it's years and years later and thing have changed but only slightly. Kids grow up and the only difference is what they're wearing and how much I feel like an old man. I love Jackie and Johan, Erica and our littlest one Donnalea. My three girls and my boy. Nothing can ever change that. I sit back and block all the tragic parts out until one of the gang calls up just to chat._

_Just to talk._

_Just to dredge it up._

_Just what I needed._

_Or Jackie will get an urge to talk about it and then I'm stuck shrugging it off as best I can but secretly accepting my blame._

_I float through it._


	11. All Mixed Up

****

Chapter 9: All Mixed Up

**__**

She shadows me in the mirror and never leaves on the light

"I'm going to pick the kids up from school. Please put in a load of dirty socks. Shit! I broke my shoe heel. Stephen?"_ Jackie interrupted my thoughts as the record blared._

"Yeah Jackie?"

"I'll be back in half an hour, love you."

"I love you too." _ I said._

After the record ended, and I was finished with the dirty socks, matching them into piles. I turned off the Led Zepplin documentary that I didn't really watch.

The other day I thought I heard Donna laughing in the other room. It was just little Donnalea. Our littlest angel. She scares me sometimes, she reminds me so much of her namesake.

It was Jackie's idea.

I can't believe my eyes, I wait for her forever, she never does arrive

Then there are the nights when I dream about Donna. She's telling me she forgives me. She's glowing and she smiles like she did when we were nine. When it was me and her and the porch. And everything was innocent and nice. Her eyes match her blue jeans and we laugh until she starts to crumble away and I wake up sweating and feeling like there are snakes in my gut.

It's all mixed up, she says to leave it to me, and everything will be alright

Then Jackie is there, and she holds me and says it's okay.

"I know you love her." she says in a quiet voice. _Like a secret. My secret._

"Jackie…"

And Jackie holds me, and I am home.

****

The End

**** ****


End file.
